


Don't Give me Hope

by OneStepShort



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Endgame compliant, Gen, I love this friendship with my entire heart, I shit on Cap a little bit, I think Steve Rogers is a dumbass but I love him anyway, It's a little sad, Just kidding it's a little salty, Yes I am still mad about Civil War, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneStepShort/pseuds/OneStepShort
Summary: "Look, I know I'm a little outside my paygrade here, but she still isn't here is she?"Not for a lack of trying.





	Don't Give me Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a gap and I filled it.

_ It’s not worth it.  _

The goddamn orange pebble glowed in his hand, seeming almost petulant. 

_ This is what your best friend’s life is worth. This is all she is to the universe.  _

“No…” he whispered, the wetness of his tears mingling with the water he was sitting in. 

With a sudden burst of indignation, he stumbled upward, standing ankle-deep in the strange fluid. 

He could see the mountain he just came from, maybe 3 clicks out? He needed to get back to the ship, keep his promise to Rocket. 

_ Bet the Racoon didn’t have to climb a mountain.  _

The reminder of his earlier conversation with Natasha stung, a pain in his chest forcing out a choked sob. 

_ Why didn’t you let me do it?  _

The answer was easy. She was too stubborn to let anyone else die. She cared. He remembered those early days, all those years ago when Natasha was still clawing the remnants of the Red Room out of her, like some overgrown fungus. 

She fought to care. To love, to take the soul they buried and drag it back out. She refused to be their weapon. She was infinitely stronger than him, always would be. 

A part of him, a stupid, selfish part, was afraid of the moment Laura would come back.  _ If it ever happens _ , his realistic side whispered. 

_ “Hi honey. Remember Nat? The woman you love like a sister and named your youngest child after? Well, she died horrifically so you could have a shitty husband and a shiny rock. Fair trade, right?”  _

God, he had messed up with her. 

Cap called him, said something along the lines of “there’s a threat, we need all hands on deck.” 

Clint understood, after years of being a father, that sometimes you have to disappoint your kids in order to do what’s best for them. That could range anywhere from “No, you cannot eat that entire tub of Ice Cream in one sitting, Cooper,” to “Sorry Lila, can’t spend time with you today, I have to go fight off a squad of supersoldiers who might topple our very fragile world structure.” 

To be fair to himself, he really did not have a full picture. “Outside the law,” as Steve put it, was where he’d always done his best work, but SHIELD had a little department called “risk assessment” with which he was uncomfortably familiar. 

You don’t go on a mission when 117 countries, the CIA, and Tony Fucking Stark are all gunning for your ass. That’s Crisis #1. You have to solve Crisis #1 before you get to Crisis #2. 

“ _ Sharon said they’d shoot him on sight. I had to get to him first.” Steve had taken them all from the Raft to hide in Wakanda, where he was now forced to explain how they got tangled up in this mess in the first place.  _

_ “You said you were going to bring him in,” Natasha grit out. She was very unhappy with how Steve handled, well, everything. “Also, for a kill order, he was alive enough to come in for a fucking Psych Eval, you ever wonder why?”  _

_ Steve didn’t answer. He sat and watched as Natasha abruptly stood up from the table and began to pace around the room.  _

_ “Me and Stark. We went to the CIA and practically  _ begged  _ Ross to let us bring Barnes in alive, and you had to go in and wreck our  _ very  _ delicate trust with US agencies and just take off and run into the sunset, didn’t you?”  _

_ “I’m sorry,” Steve’s apology was flat, emotionless. Clint’s eyes flicked between the two of them. Natasha definitely wasn’t finished.  _

_“And then you had to run off _again _and make me and Stark come after you, and then my dumb ass actually thought you knew what you were doing and I _let you go._” She let out a self-deprecating laugh._ _“And then you had to destroy any last olive branch we’d ever have from Tony, and now here we are.” She was fuming. “No team. No family. No Avengers.” _

_ “It wasn’t just me. Tony-“  _

_ “I tried to keep us together!” She shouted. Clint recoiled a little.  _

_ “At what cost?” Steve shot back, and Clint decided he really must have a death wish.  _

_ The  _ look  _ Nat gave him could have cut glass. “Get your head out of your ass.” She spat. “This was never about responsibility. It wasn’t about our ‘freedom to choose’ or political agendas or Ultron or any of it.” She took a deep breath before continuing.  _

_ “It was a goddamn PR fire, one that  _ you  _ started in Lagos, by the way, that we could have put out in a  _ day.” 

_ Steve’s jaw clenched. “Well, I guess we all have to live with our choices” He got up and left, leaving Nat alone with Clint. _

He never would have brought Wanda in if he knew about Lagos. She was safe, and Clint had made her leave because he thought she was just  _ moping _ , instead of hiding from some very powerful people, one of whom had a long history with illegal human experimentation. 

He didn’t know what Ross did to her, when they dragged her out of her cell in that fucking straight jacket. It was barely a week, but it was enough to make her refuse to make eye contact or talk to them for months after. Enough to make her wake up screaming, clawing at a collar that was no longer there. 

That was what Vision and Stark were protecting her from. That’s what Clint sent her to. 

He had no idea how he managed to swing him that House Arrest deal. Someone in his corner had pretty damn good lawyers. The day he learned he could go back home to his family was one of the happiest in his life. He didn’t care about the ankle monitor. 

Natasha never forgot to visit during those two years. Wanda would stay with them too, sometimes. He had a soft spot for the kid, and she deserved a little bit of care and safety. She wasn’t all that stoked about being away from Vision and the compound that had finally started to feel like home. They were very discreet, and those FBI agents watching him were none the wiser. 

His family, God bless them, embraced the two women with ease. By some miracle, after abandoning them and returning as an internationally recognized criminal, they forgave him. Laura was very clear in her stance about a certain Captain, but she was happy to welcome anyone who wasn’t, as she so poetically put it, an “arrogant dumbass.” 

Now they were gone. That sick lottery had taken everyone he loved, all except one. He spent five years refusing to face her, and then the stone had taken her, too. 

The Pym tech shrank the ship back into its convenient travel size. Clint pocketed it, soaking wet and freezing on this godforsaken wasteland of a planet. He looked up at the base of the mountainside, the pathway they’d taken only hours before beckoning him to the top. 

It occurred to him that if he walked around to the other side of the cliff, he’d find her body there, with her skull split open, the red of her blood mixing with that of her hair, her dead eyes glazed over, arms and legs splayed out, unnaturally bent by shattered bones. 

He shook the image out of his mind. He looked at his time locator. 

_ Time doesn’t matter. It’s 2014. Technically, you have 9 years to get back to the others.  _

He looked back at the path up the mountain, the stone in his pocket seeming to weigh him down. 

Did they really need all 6? What could a “soul stone” even do, anyway? Besides kill his friend. 

He started the trek up the mountain before he could change his mind. 

_ I’m getting her back. And if we still need the stone, I’m doing it myself.  _

A voice in the back of his mind whispered that she might never forgive him, that he should take her choice and respect it. 

_ She damn well must have thought you were worth it.  _

But he wasn’t. He used his skills to go on a murder spree. She used hers to get the world back on its feet. She’d hate him, and he was being selfish. He knew that. He knew what he was doing was wrong and cowardly, and  _ goddammit Clint there’s a bigger picture here.  _

But at least she’d be alive. The world needed Natasha Romanoff. The Avengers needed the Black Widow. And he could never live with himself if he didn’t at least try to make this right. 

Fueled by his newfound determination, the hike up the mountain seemed to pass in seconds. 

The man with the Red Skull was waiting for him, floating at the landing. 

“Clint, son of Edith-“ 

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve met. Listen, I need to get my friend back.” 

Saying the words filled him with irrational hope and desperate longing. 

“I’m afraid that not possible.” 

Clint dug the stone out of his pocket and held it out to him, the damned thing still glowing. “Take it back. You said it was an exchange, right? A soul for a soul. Take it and bring. Her. Back.” His voice was rising. The floating figure seemed unaffected. 

“I said an  _ everlasting  _ exchange.” 

Clint groaned in frustration and pushed past the annoyingly serene spectre. He marched all the way up, right to the ledge, refusing to look down. He held the stone in his closed fist out above the drop. “I’m giving it back. It’s not worth it.” 

“If you drop that,” the Red Skull warned, “You’ll lose it forever. And her sacrifice will be for nothing.” 

“I’m tired of your shit.” 

“Just look,” he nodded toward the cliffside. 

Clint didn’t want to look. Once was enough, when he was hanging for his life by that grappling hook, because even when Nat was pulling her punches, she was always one step ahead. 

But he needed to know. 

Clint risked a look over the edge and nearly vomited at the sight. 

She was already decomposing. Holes bloomed in her flesh, revealing ashen bones that blended with the snow. Her eyes were hollow, and Clint thought he could see part of her jaw bone protruding. Her suit seemed...deflated. He tried not to look at it, to keep this nightmare from replacing his memory of the  _ real  _ Natasha, but he couldn’t tear away. 

It couldn’t have been that much time, and this climate should keep her preserved. How the hell- 

“The stone is consuming her.” 

“Oh god…” he stumbled away from the edge, the stone still secured in his fist. He ran his free hand through his still wet hair, feeling the flakes of snow dust across it. “Oh god no, please…” 

_ Please don’t let this be real. _

He took a few shaky breaths to steady himself. “Natasha…” 

He didn’t know if the guide was lying. Natasha didn’t think he was, and her instincts were better than anyone's. And he wasn’t lying about how to get to the stone. He wanted so desperately to throw the hateful thing into the cavern, just for the smallest chance of getting her back. It had to work, right? It had to, it had too…

_ I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.  _

But if he was telling the truth, Clint was holding Nat’s  _ life  _ in his closed fist. And nothing, not all the hope in the world, could make him throw that away. 

“Fuck,” he whimpered. 

The Red Skull was silent. 

“ _ Fuck!”  _

There was nothing he could do. 

_ She’s gone.  _

He looked over the side again, some sick desire to convince himself that this was real. 

Her empty skull stared back at him, twisted in a haunting grin. 

He wasn’t sure if it was his grief-stricken mind playing tricks, but he felt the stone grow warm in his hand. 

And he heard her. Her voice, so clear and bright she could have been standing next to him 

“Come on, Hawkeye,” he could hear her smiling playfully at the nickname, “Finish the job.” 

He whirled around to see her. “Natasha?” 

Nothing. No answer. 

With shaking hands, he brought up his quantum suit. As the mask snapped closed, he could have sworn he saw a ghostly apparition float across the cold gray stone. A black suit with fiery red hair. 

_ Whatever it takes.  _

He snapped back into the present. His strength finally gave out, and he fell to his knees on the platform with a deafening echo on the glass, the stone still in his hand. He couldn’t look at them. 

“Clint, where’s Nat?” 


End file.
